Cinematic Soulmates: Up and No Country for Old Men

Chris Olson of Clearance Bin Review writes, "Okay, I know you probably read the headline above and thought to yourself, “What the hell is this guy smoking?”, but hear me out. I can explain. See, when I started writing this column, one of the things I wanted to do was to try and find connections between movies that didn’t seem all that similar on the surface, but upon closer inspection actually shared some of the same themes and explored the same ideas. Most of the films I’ve focused on thus far have rather obvious similarities, but as I wrote in my article comparing Ran and Once Upon a Time in the West, “Sometimes, the connections between two films are obvious, but there are other times when a little digging is required to find a common thread that links them. This can often yield even greater rewards, as it can open up entirely new ways of looking at both films, and can unlock things that you didn’t even realize were there.” To that end, I deliberately set out to challenge myself by looking at two films that were so radically different from one another, the connections wouldn’t seem immediately obvious, but nonetheless ended up sharing a number of themes and ideas in common. Which brings us to this month’s article, in which I try to find some sort of connection between Up (2009) and No Country for Old Men (2007)."